A CHRONICLE SPECIAL REPORT

The Tank:

Meet Jennifer Herring

Social worker Jennifer Herring thought she’d be spend the remainder of her professional life as an academic, not a program director in a jail. But she says she knew after one day working in the jail that this was God’s plan for her all along.

Growing up, Jennifer Herring watched her aunt, Kathy Griffin, spiral in and out of control. Herring was a teenager when Griffin joined a Rick James tour as a backup dancer. And she watched as Griffin's flashy, expensive coke habit descended into dope binges that, to afford her fixes, sent her out on the streets as a prostitute.

Herring watched as Griffin went to jail, tried to get clean, and landed back on the streets – over and over and over. It was different than the way Herring's musician dad drank – at night with his 20-piece orchestra, before waking up the next day and reporting to his job as a teacher.

"My father was functional. He got up everyday. He went to work," says Herring, now a licensed social worker and director of the Harris County Sheriff's Office re-entry program. "But when Kathy left and she left her children, that's when I knew we had a problem."

Herring wanted to help. But she didn't know how.

A Divine Call

Her aunt flunked out of so many rehab programs (more than 20, the way she tells it) that she was deemed "unrehabilitatable."

But according to Herring's worldview (and the dictionary), there's no such thing as "unrehabilitatable."

Now, Griffin has been clean for more than a decade. She spends her days – and many nights – working as a recovery coach for prostitutes trying to take back their lives. And Herring, her niece, is now her boss.

In 2009, Herring was teaching social work at Texas Southern University when Griffin asked for help with her fledgling prostitute rescue mission, called "We've Been There Done That." It was, in part, a way for Griffin to work on her own recovery.

For Herring, it was, at last, an opportunity to help her aunt.

"It was God's plan all along," Herring says. "Me and her worked to do this, and create this community."

From her free time, Herring carved out hours to create structure for the ragtag program.

In 2012, after eight years at the university, Herring's teaching contract ended, turning her professional life upside down.

"I thought that was there I would retire," she says. "I never thought it would be back in the trenches."

But the following summer, Harris County Sheriff's Office called to offer her a job overseeing We've Been There, Done That and creating other re-entry programs that could qualify for newly available federal funds.

It wasn't what Herring had imagined for her life. But it felt like a call from the divine.

She laughs: "I said, 'OK, God. I'll be obedient. But you're telling me to go to jail? Really? I wear nice suits every day. I have a nice office at Texas Southern.'"

She told God she would give it a day at the jail. If she didn't think it was for her, she'd find something else.

"And as soon as I walked in there, I was like, 'Wow. This is where I want to be,'" she says.

Since Herring joined the staff at the jail in 2013, the re-entry umbrella has grown from covering one program to four. And she has high hopes that as re-entry’s reach grows, so will its impact.

Herring wrote grant proposals and curricula. To find people who could benefit from time in a re-entry tank, she searched through records of more than 9,000 inmates at 1200 Baker downtown.

Now, the jail's re-entry umbrella covers four programs: We've Been There Done That, which mainly serves prisoners with a history of prostitution in both female and LGBT (heavy on the T) tanks; Stars and Stripes, which provides service to veterans; Mentoring Moms, geared toward pregnant and post-partum inmates; and the Freedom Project, an addiction program for drug offenders. The programs were chosen by identifying the populations most likely to return to crime, and focusing on ways to break their cycles.

Often, re-entry is defined as helping inmates re-acclimate to society after they're released. But Herring thought that was too late: Why waste all the time that inmates are in jail? She and her team worked to find men and women who would qualify for one of the county's four programs as soon as they were booked.

In writing the curriculum for each program, she focused heavily on case management, linking inmates to coaches who can connect them to resources in the real world. Community volunteers visit the tanks regularly. There are bankers and lawyers; retirees looking to give something back in their golden years. Some teach financial courses, which offer lessons on everything from how to open a bank account to financial recovery. Others link inmates with information about wellness programs and job opportunities.

"What would make someone who has been living on the streets, addicted to drugs, owned by a pimp and beaten by her boyfriend – what would make that person come and get the resources that I have for them?" Herring asks. "What would motivate a person to do that? So I looked at personal power and the lack of personal power. I looked at vulnerability. I looked at victimization."

'Submit Yourself'

"One of my favorite words is 'humility,'" Herring says to the men and women of Tank 6M1B on a Friday morning in late June. "To submit yourself to the power that's greater than yourself. Yes. And when you submit, things start to come together. They start to make sense."

Her words take on the cadences of a sermon.

"Somewhere in your life, you needed to be slowed. Somewhere, you were running too fast. And this right here, might be what saves your life. So I tell everybody when I talk to them, to focus on the now. The moment that I have now. I have an opportunity to become a better me. And that is everyday possible."

Heads nod. Some inmates respond with "mmhmm" under their breath, or a "yes," out loud.

"That's what this program allows you – the opportunity to think critically, to think deep. To uncover some things that you might not even know have affected you in the decision that you made in your life. And what I saw here was a great system of support to be able to do that."

In jail, of all places, she says. "Wow."

She is preaching full-tilt now. "Use this opportunity of down time to not look at it that this is a horrible thing. But maybe this is a position I need to be in to keep living. Mmhmm. Because maybe if I stayed out in the streets, I might be dead. Maybe the direction I was going in, either I might be dead, or I might continue to kill someone. Ooh, it's gotta stop. It's gotta stop. It's gotta stop somewhere," she says, building into a thudding crescendo. "And denial won't get you there. Will not. You're doing nothing, but fighting yourself. Open your mind. Open your heart. And allow change to take place."

Some inmates hang on Herring's every word.

Some don't.

But she'll keep talking until everyone's ready to listen. No one, she thinks, is unrehabilitatable. Everyone can change.

Maggie Gordon is a Houston Chronicle features reporter. She can be reached by e-mail at Maggie.Gordon@chron.com or by Twitter: @MagEGordon